The present invention is directed to a machine for harvesting foodstuffs such as nuts from the ground.
Almonds, pecans, hazelnuts and other varieties of nuts grow on trees and bushes. When these nuts become ripe, many of them fall off the tree onto the ground. The nuts that are on the ground can be harvested in excellent condition.
With certain varieties of nuts, it is beneficial for the nuts to fall off the tree because it allows the nuts to dry before being harvested. Accordingly, it is common practice to shake the nut trees with a machine so that the nuts fall to the ground and dry. In these cases, the entire nut crop is harvested from the ground.
After the trees are shaken and the nuts have dried on the ground, a two-step process is used to harvest the nuts. First, a machine blows the nuts away from the base of the trees and off of the ridges on which these trees are planted. Usually this same machine also sweeps or blows the nuts into a long pile or row. A substantial portion of the nut crop can be lost during this step because the nuts are blown or swept into cracks in the ground, tire prints or footprints. A second machine then gathers the nuts from the pile or the row. Accordingly, the present harvesting process involves two separate machines making two or more separate passes through the nut orchard.
The present harvesting process has many disadvantages, which include being expensive and time-consuming. Additionally, while the nuts are on the ground, worms and other pests on the ground begin to eat at the nuts. After the nuts are swept into long piles, the worms and pests can move quickly from one nut to the next nut. A substantial portion of the nut crop can be damaged while the nuts are in the long piles. Moreover, when the nuts are being swept into long piles, the mechanical action of the sweeper can damage some of the nuts. Further, when the nuts are being swept or blown into the long piles, a great amount of dirt and debris from the ground is blown into the atmosphere, causing clouds of dirt which may cause environmental and health problems.
Accordingly, there is a need for a machine that quickly and efficiently harvests a nut crop from the ground in one pass through an orchard, thereby reducing the number of machines used in the harvest, eliminating the step of sweeping the nuts into long piles, reducing the amount of nuts lost in cracks in the ground, tire prints or footprints, reducing the amount of dust in the environment, and reducing the amount of nuts damaged or destroyed by worms, pests or mechanical handling.